Formed two years ago in the San Francisco area, the detuned, discordant four-piece experimental post-punk band OVVN have teamed up with IDIOTEQ and their label Don’t Look Down Records to premiere their new track called “The Lake”, coming from new album I Love Myself and Want to Live, to be released in June. The label has appropriately described the band by stating:
Sometimes you come across a band so unique, you have trouble really comparing them to anyone. Maybe that’s why I don’t do reviews. When I talk to people about OVVN, I try to describe the vocal effect, the unparalleled harmonies and melodies, and the explosive drums, but I always just end with saying, you just have to see them. When Ethan approached me and said he wanted to work with the label, I became both excited, and nervous; because I’m still figuring out what exactly a label should be doing. With that all being said, this is an album to be excited about and I couldn’t be happier to be involved.
Being on the verge of releasing a wonderfully worthy experimental rock album, OVVN offer a glimse into it, taking the psyche elements from various experimental maestros and serving an intriguing jam that really drills into the head.
The band’s very own multi-instrumentalist Ethan Jayne commented on the track:
The earliest, primitive fossil evidence of “The Lake” the song can be found in 2013 when I was living in a warehouse just east of Lake Merritt in Oakland, before OVVN was a band. I would jog around the lake all the time but I didn’t have headphones or a phone or anything that would play music for me, so I would hum and sing a stupid little tune to myself. That simple earworm of words and melody stuck with me and later became an OVVN song.
“The Lake” as it exists today could not exist without (drummer) Connor Alfaro. He makes the whole song cuz he absolutely beats the shit out of the drums on the recording, every time we play it, really. Like, sticks turned around the other way, teeth grinding, shredding and bludgeoning all the fucking way.
Connor and I live in Santa Rosa now, the other half of our band is in Oakland. I don’t jog much anymore but if I did I would wear headphones and listen to Young Thug.
Listen and tell us what you think in the comments below:
OVVN (rhymes with “bone”) is a detuned, discordant four-piece post-punk band from the San Francisco Bay Area, originally formed in 2014.
After self-releasing a series of EPs, touring and noisily carving out a niche as a bridge between thriving North and East Bay punk communities, OVVN are teaming with San Francisco-based label Don’t Look Down Records to release their twelve-inch vinyl debut “I Love Myself And Want To Live” In June 2016.
“I Love Myself…” is the capture of OVVN’s power and potential writ into black wax. Guitars squall and writhe in surgical, acrimonious feedback; Bass and drums thrum and pound in devolutionary lockstep. Demonic, pitch-shifted vocals holler anxiety and portend misery; Hooks, riffs and melodies are vivisected and taxidermied in a dark psychedelic grime. Highly recommended for fans of old-guard visionaries such as Shellac, Sonic Youth and Unwound as well as 2010s contemporaries like Protomartyr and Pissed Jeans.
Watch the band’s debut music video for the track ‘b l o vv n’, released back in 2014:
